How To Fall (In Love)
by nyaga.roxas
Summary: Charlotte, called Charlie, moves to Lima with her mother and younger brother. She hopes she will find her Prince Charming, someday, but in her new school she falls in love with the last person she could have fallen in love with.
1. Prologue

How To Fall (In Love)

Prologue

Moving another time. She remembered never staying in the same city for more than a year. She already knew that this time the story would have been the same: a few months, and and she would have moved again. Maybe her mother would have been tired of seeing the same customers every day, or maybe she herself would have done something stupid again, or maybe her younger brother wouldn't have liked the new city… The last hypothesis was quite absurd, as they were returning to the very same city they lived in a year before. They were heading back to Lima, Ohio, and Charlie didn't like it at all. She was pretty sure she would meet someone who would recognize her and would have remembered what happened the year before. How did she come up with the idea of secretly attend a whole-boys school, even dressing up as a boy? She hoped her mother would have never discovered that, but things went very differently.  
After several months spent in Seattle, they were moving again. Now, she wouldn't care less: every time they arrived in a new place, they had to pack up again so soon that they wouldn't even have spent some time getting used to the new city. She didn't even remember how many times she had to move, since she was born. Her elder brother was right, when he had run away from home! Now he was far away, travelling, with his new girlfriend, who Charlie didn't really like: that's why she didn't like receiving phone calls by him.  
When they arrived in front of their new home, Charlie was relieved, when she discovered that it was far enough from the house they lived in the year before. Maybe no one would have recognized her in that new neighborhood!

.

.

.

Hi everyone! This story is part of an experiment I did a few years ago, when I imagined how the story would have been like if this character I introduced you in the prologue was there.  
Nevertheless, as I continued planning the story in my head, I started to realize I liked this character less and less, so her story will develop in three brief appearances, during the beginning of the second, third and fourth seasons (plus an epilogue, but I still don't know if I'm going to publish it).  
I hope you'll like the story anyway, despite all the things I have just told you! :)


	2. Part 1 - Chapter 1

Part 1: The New Boy In Town

Chapter 1

A new school year had just begun at McKinley High. It was the week after school began, and some students had already begun the countdown to Christmas. It was Charlie's first day at the new school, and she hoped to stay there for more than just a few months. She hoped to find a friend, also because it was September, the school year had just begun, and it was normal for the students to find themselves rounded with new faces. A few times she had to move to another school in the middle of the school year, or near its end, and she found it really difficult to mingle. Besides, she hoped she would finally find the love of her life, since the last time she thought she had found it, it wasn't really like she hoped it would have been...

The Spanish class seemed to never end. Finn Hudson looked at his wristwatch: was it possible that only ten minutes had passed since the beginning of the lesson? He hoped something would happen, like something that could interrupt the lesson, like a fire, an earthquake, an extraordinary general meeting, or even a caretaker...  
He was trying to understand what the teacher was talking about, when the classroom door opened. A boy, clearly a disoriented new student, came in. He was wearing jeans, an electric blue sweatshirt and a black baseball cap. He had a dark gray backpack, without writings or drawings on it. He looked smaller and skinnier than how he must have been, maybe because the clothes he was wearing were so much bigger than his actual size: maybe his family couldn't afford new clothes, and he had to wear his older brother's clothes, or even his father's...  
He must have been a new student: he brought a paper to the professor, maybe the timetable he was just handed, and the professor confirmed him he was in the right classroom, then he asked him to sit in one of the first rows.  
"Sir would it be a problem, for you, if I prefer to keep my cap on during the lesson?" said the boy, with a weird voice. Perhaps his voice hadn't changed yet, as everyone in that class thought.  
"No, you can keep it, if you want!" the professor answered.  
The whole class looked at the newcomer, as if they were at the zoo and they were looking at a rare animal they had never seen before.  
"You have already studied Spanish before, haven't you, Charlie?" the professor asked the newcomer.

.

.

.

Hi! Before you continue your reading, I wanted to warn you about a detail of this story. As I introduced a new character to the main plot, I wanted to describe her through the eyes of the other characters. Since Charlie, the protagonist, is dressed up as a boy in some scenes, and the characters don't know she's actually a girl, I use masculine pronouns while talking about her. I'm telling you this now because I have received comments, in the past, by readers who could not understand who I was talking about in some scenes. I hope I have been clear about this issue.  
By the way, I hope you like the story. If you do, I would be very happy if you let me know! :)


	3. Part 1 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Charlie was standing in front of the bulletin board. Maybe a school club would have been a great occasion to make friends, and perhaps she wouldn't have to move again very soon! There were clubs of any kind: club of the Latin lovers, of the chess champions, the Drama Club, the Cooking Club, basketball and football teams... But how would she be accepted by someone, if she was hiding again? She has dressed up as a boy once again, but this time, it hadn't been easy at all: at least, the last time the school had given her a uniform to wear, and she had shorter hair, which she didn't have to hide under a cap. This time, she had 'borrowed' her elder brother's clothes, that were really too big for her! Definitely, someone would have unmasked her sooner or later, and God knows what would have happened! Her mother would have gotten really mad at her, and they would have to move again, God knows where, and Charlie would have continued her life moving from one place to another, never binding with anyone.  
"Hey, hello!"  
A voice shook her from her thoughts. She turned around, and saw that the voice belonged to a tall boy ― a very tall boy! ― she noticed during the Spanish class. What if he had discovered her secret identity? Or worse, what if he had recognized her because he was her classmate a year before?  
"You're new here, aren't you?" the boy continued.  
Good, maybe she was safe, and her world tour wouldn't have had to begin again the following day.  
"Erm... yes, I just moved here from Seattle," Charlie answered, disguising her voice so that it would sound like a boy's voice.  
"And... You don't know anyone here?"  
Charlie thought of the boys she had meet a year before: it was absolutely impossible to meet someone of them in that school!  
"No, I don't know anyone!" she answered.  
"I am Finn Hudson," the boy told her, holding out his hand to her.  
"Charlie St. Claire," she said, shaking Finn's hand.  
"Were you looking for some extracurricular activities to do?"  
"Yeah, I thought it could be an occasion to meet someone!"  
"Well... Would you like to sing?"  
"Sorry, what?"  
She hadn't been singing for months. Usually she did that because her younger brother liked it very much, but since her last almost-boyfriend she sang no more.  
"Never heard of the Glee Club?" Finn asked her.  
"Yeah, I've been there, in another school, but I didn't know they had one here too!" Charlie answered.  
"Never went to Sectional or Regional Championships?"  
"No, I've stayed in that school for too little time..."  
"Why don't you join ours, then? Professor Schuester is looking for new members! The others will certainly be happy to meet you!"  
He brought her to the choir room, as all the club members called it. It was a big room, with several musical instruments, a band, and many chairs. Sitting on the chairs, there were people Charlie wasn't sure she'd ever be friends with.  
"Guys, he's Charlie!" Finn began. "He's new, and he'd like to join the Glee Club!"  
"Great!" said the professor. The other club members too were happy that a new boy just joined them.  
"You can sing, can't you, Charlie?" he asked, then.  
"Sure, even if I haven't sung for a while..." answered Charlie.  
"Why don't you sing us something, then?"  
Charlie told the band the title of the first song she had thought of. She didn't know exactly why she chose right that song, but, thinking about its words, it seemed to describe perfectly her life in that moment.

" _I'm not surprised not everything lasts:_  
 _I've broken my heart so many times I've stopped keepin' track._  
 _Talk myself in, I talk myself out,_  
 _I get all worked up than I let myself down._ "

It had always been difficult for her to sing disguising her voice. The year before, she had managed to sing with that voice for months, without anyone knowing.  
While she was singing, she was looking at the other guys staring at her trying to understand what kind of person she was: a boy with glasses on a wheelchair (who painfully reminded her of her younger brother), a black girl who almost certainly was the homecoming queen (since it seemed impossible that someone could walk over her), some cheerleaders, a boy with a mohawk who had tried to mess up with her that very morning...

" _And I know someday that it'll all turn up_  
 _You'll make me work so we can work to work it out_  
 _And I promise you kid that I'll give so much more than I get_  
 _I just haven't met you yet._ "

She was singing a song about the fact that she was still sure that one day she would find the love of her life, and, 'studying' the people she had there in front of herself, she hoped he would appear, out of the blue.

" _I might have to wait_  
 _I'll never give up_  
 _I guess it's half timing and the other half's luck_  
 _Wherever you are, whenever it's right_  
 _You'll come out of nowhere and into my life_  
 _And I know that we can be so amazing_  
 _And baby your love is gonna change me_  
 _And now I can see every possibility…_ "

She had always asked herself, how much she would have to wait, before she would meet the right person for her. Suddenly, she thought she had just found him. She was sure she had already met him many times in the past, but this time she felt she was right: he was the right person for her, she was absolutely sure of it. Blue eyes, brown hair, and the sight of one who wasn't absolutely judging her in any way: what if he would have been the first, after a long series of idiots, who would have treated her the way she deserved?

" _Oh you know that will all turn out_  
 _And you'll make me work so we can work to work it out_  
 _And I promise you kid... to give so much more than I get_  
 _Yeah I just haven't met you yet!_ "

She tried not to forget that everyone thought she was a boy. What if they had seen her staring at that boy, as if she had been madly in love with him?  
She finished the song thinking that finally she had found what she was looking for. The music ended, and everyone ran toward her to hug her, or to give their compliments to her, for the beautiful song she had just sung, and for her wonderful voice (which, disguised in that way, she didn't like at all).  
Some other guys too had the chance to sing in front of everyone else, until the bell rang.

Charlie was putting away her books in her locker. She hadn't done anything to customize it yet: she had stopped doing that, because she understood it was useless, knowing that in a few weeks she would have moved again, God knows where. She hoped she wouldn't have to move again too soon, that time.  
She was still deep in thought, when she noticed the boy standing next to her.  
"Hi!" he said to her.  
It was the boy she had noticed while she was singing. How long had she been staring at him? Maybe someone had begun to suspect she was not who she had claimed to be?  
"Hi..." she answered.  
"You know, I didn't manage to tell you before..." the boy went on. "But that song was amazing!"  
"Well... thanks! I never met anyone else who liked it, or who knew it!"  
"Actually, I just listened to Nyaga's version: it's wonderful!"  
"Are you a fan of hers?" Charlie asked, astonished. "I never met another Nyaga fan, maybe because I used to move too often..."  
"Yeah, she's great... I'm Kurt Hummel, by the way."  
"And I'm Charlie, but I guess you already know..."  
The boy laughed.  
"Look, would you like to go out for a coffee... let's say... Wednesday afternoon?" Kurt asked her. "I know a place where they make really good coffee!"  
"You mean... go out as friends, don't you?" asked Charlie.  
"Of course! I thought that, as you just arrived, you wanted to see the city!"  
"Alright, then!"  
"Fine, see you around... Charlie!" Kurt waved her off, and then he went to class.

Hi! I hope you liked this chapter!  
I just wanted to make you notice some things. First, I wanted to remind you that Charlie, the protagonist, is a girl who is temporarily dressed up as a boy, but since she is described through the eyes of the other characters (who think she is actually a boy), the pronouns I use referring to her might be a little confusing.  
Then, I would like to warn you that in many chapters, like in this one, I will be putting some musical lyrics (since Glee is a musical... I hope you haven't already forgotten that!). In this chapter, the lyrics belong to the song "Haven't Met You Yet" by Michael Bublé (and if you don't know it, go listen to it immediately!).  
Thirdly, in case you're wondering who the heck this "Nyaga" is, just know that she is a singer I completely made up, because in the next chapters you will see song lyrics from existing songs, but also lyrics that were written by me (I'm not a singer/songwriter or anything, I'm just someone who likes writing musicless song lyrics, because I'm not a musician).  
This said, I hope you're enjoying this story, and that you'll keep reading it! :)


	4. Part 1 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Each time, it was always the same: Charlie went to a new school, met someone, spent the following days knowing her new friends and learning their names, and then she had to move again, suddenly, and the story started again. This time, she hoped things went differently. Maybe she would have stayed in that city a little bit longer...  
Therefore, she spent the next two days trying to know better her new friends from the Glee club, hoping she wouldn't have to forget and replace them too soon, until Wednesday afternoon arrived.  
Charlie was always on time. She just hoped she didn't get the bar address wrong...  
She was walking calmly: she already knew she would have arrived to the date on perfect time, and that she would have to wait for Kurt, who would have arrived late, as all boys do. She was pretty surprised, however, when she spotted him right in front of the bar, waiting for her: that boy was different from all the other ones she had met, she was sure of that!  
Both ordered a latte, and sat at a table to talk. Charlie struggled to behave like a boy, as usual, but Kurt's presence distracted her continuously.  
"So, you've already been in Lima?" asked Kurt.  
"Yeah, but I stayed here just for a few months..." Charlie answered.  
"Why? What happened?"  
"I don't know... Maybe my mother was tired of seeing the same old customers... or maybe she didn't like the fact that I was always trying to get… _someone_ 's attention..."  
She didn't want to say it had been a boy, so she preferred to use a more ambiguous term...  
"Really?" Kurt asked.  
"Yes, but it was just a waste of time... That was a very stupid person: four months in the same school, and never noticed me! People are very stupid sometimes..."  
Kurt laughed. Charlie had never met a boy who thought she was funny, in some way. In that moment, that laughter sounded like the most beautiful music in the world...  
But, what was she doing? She couldn't fall in love again, especially after all the idiots she had met... But although this time it was different, and she had met a boy who was different than the other ones, she couldn't fall in love with him: she had made everyone believe she was a boy, and dating Kurt would have seemed really weird!  
"You know, I perfectly know how you feel," Kurt told her. "Maybe that's because I started listening to Nyaga!"  
"I didn't believe she had other fan boys! I thought I was the only one!"  
"She's great, and I don't think she only speaks to girls, in her songs..."  
They spent the rest of the afternoon talking about this and that, from their favorite movies to the food they disliked the most, until Kurt walked Charlie home.

The next day, at school, Kurt was happier than usual, because he thought he finally found his soulmate. Charlie felt in the same way, and she was happy she finally had met a boy who actually cared about her. Charlie didn't tell anyone what happened the previous afternoon, while Kurt told everything to his friend Rachel. Nevertheless, the girl was worried for her friend: what if Charlie didn't feel the same way as him? She didn't want Kurt to be turned down by Charlie, nor Charlie to be forced to reject Kurt. She talked about this with Finn, her boyfriend: she believed that, having persuaded Charlie to join the Glee club only a few days before, he would have certainly managed to explain Charlie the whole situation!  
During the lunch break, when everyone was in the school cafeteria, Finn found Charlie sitting alone at a table. He decided it was the perfect situation to talk with the boy, as during lunch everyone was too busy chatting with their friends to eavesdrop their conversation. He approached the table and sat opposite the boy.  
"Hi!" he began.  
"Hi..." Charlie answered.  
That boy had barely said hello to her and Charlie already had the feeling that she would have to move again, for a new strange reason...  
"I heard that yesterday Kurt took you for a walk around the city..." Finn went on.  
Charlie got the impression that news spread very quickly in that school...  
"Well, as I've been here only for a few days, he thought it would have been nice to take me for a walk..." Charlie answered. "After all, there's nothing wrong with two friends going for a walk together..."  
"That was exactly what I wanted to talk about... I'm afraid Kurt didn't think of it in the same way..."  
"What are you trying to tell me?"  
Actually Charlie had already understood what the boy was trying to tell her, but she hoped he was going to tell her something else.  
"Perhaps doesn't see you just as a friend, but as a... potential boyfriend!" Finn told her.  
"You mean he is..."  
Charlie didn't manage to complete the sentence. Her happiness had lasted only a few days, before the world crashed again in front of her own eyes.  
'Not another time!' the girl thought.

At the end of the lunch break the bell rang, and Charlie went straight to the choir room, as she had a lesson-free hour. The other members of the Glee club had told her that for them singing was like giving vent to their feelings, and Charlie was looking forward to it.  
The choir room was deserted. She was completely alone with her thoughts. She wanted to think about a way to keep staying there, instead of running away, as usual, but it would have ended with her mother discovering everything.  
And then, if she had stayed there, what would have happened? Everyone thought she was a boy, and she wasn't brave enough to tell everyone who she really was. If she had told everyone she was a girl, her new friends would have realized she had been teasing them the whole time, and she would certainly have become an outcast.  
And what about Kurt? That's all we needed! After spending years searching for the perfect guy for her, with no success, finally, she had found him... Too bad he only had one small flaw: he could not feel the same for her! Or better, he did feel the same for her, but he thought Charlie was actually a boy!  
Charlie started to think of the right thing to do, in that moment. She took off her cap and undid her hair. She found herself with a song in her head, and started to sing it. She had known it by heart since the day it had come out, and she had always thought it perfectly described her life.

 _N°1 was my first love, but I was only 5!_  
 _N°2 was from Asia, and soon he said 'Goodbye!'._  
 _N°3 was nothing special, but I liked boys with glasses!_  
 _N°4 was my best friend, but now I wanna kick him in the a**! Oh!_

She hadn't sung with her actual voice for a long time. Obviously she thought that the version sung by her favorite singer was infinitely superior to the one she was singing in that moment, but at least she was expressing herself, she was giving vent to her feelings, she was finally telling the world what she was feeling.

 _I didn't really know N°5, cause soon he went away._  
 _I hoped something by N°6, but he had a girlfriend, and now we're in separate ways..._  
 _N°7 swam with me, but I was invisible to him!_  
 _N°8 was from far away, and now he's gone and left me right here!_  
 _I guess something's telling me: 'No more guys, you gotta be free!'_

She had always liked the feeling of paying attention to the lyrics of some song and getting the impression that they had been written about someone's own life: it's like a sort of 'connection' between a singer and a fan.  
Charlie kept singing, thinking about her life, and didn't notice what happened outside of the room. The song was almost over, when Tina, Artie and Mercedes, three of the other Glee club members, saw Charlie, or better, the real Charlie!

' _You gotta forget every guy who made you suffer,_  
 _You gotta forget every guy that didn't notice you!'_  
 _Please don't be just a jerk like all the other ones,_  
 _Please, don't be another one who will make me feel blue!_  
 _I just don't deserve someone who will treat me like this,_  
 _So promise you won't be another number in my list..._  
 _No, no... Another number in my list..._

When the song ended, Charlie turned around, and to her great surprise she saw the three people staring at her, as surprised as she was.  
"Charlie?" asked Artie, a boy with whom Charlie had hardly ever spoken.  
'My life is officially over!' Charlie thought.  
"You... are a girl?" Tina asked.  
"And why have you lied to us for all this time?" Mercedes asked, suspiciously.  
"I haven't lied about everything..." Charlie tried to explain. "It was only a little white lie... And I had a good reason for doing that..."  
"Who are you really?" Mercedes went on. "Perhaps you lied about your name too..."  
"No, my name's actually Charlie!" the girl answered. "My full name is Charlotte, but since my eldest brother ran away from home, I started making people call me Charlie..."  
"And why did you dress up as a boy?" Tina asked.  
"It's not the first time I do it, and neither the other time it turned up as one of my best ideas..." Charlie answered. "I've always lived with my mother and my two brothers. I have no idea of who my father is, and I don't even know if he's also the father of my brothers, as we don't look like each other at all!"  
"Excuse me, but what's your mother's job?" asked Artie.  
"She never told me, but I think I might have an idea..." Charlie answered. "By the way, my eldest brother has always been considered some sort of God come down to earth, and I have never been important to anyone, but to my brothers..."  
"What's that got to do with dressing up?" asked Mercedes.  
"I thought that, if I had got dressed up as a boy, I would have looked cooler..." Charlie answered. "My eldest brother had always been popular at his school, and he keeps being so even now that he ran away from home and decided to travel around the world with a girl I never tolerated!"  
"I don't know if you got that, but you would have been accepted here, even if you had stayed yourself!" Mercedes went on. "Perhaps you've been in too many schools where the first impression is the one that matters..."  
"Yeah..." Charlie confirmed. "What do I do now? How can I tell everyone? And... Kurt?"  
"You could try singing..." Artie suggested.

Hi readers!  
I just wanted to let you know that the pronoun game with Charlie is almost over! I hope I haven't been confusing you too much... Next chapter will be the final chapter of the first part of the story (but there will be two more parts, so don't worry).  
Secondly, I wanted you to notice the song lyrics that appear in this chapter: they are from a song/poem I wrote a few years ago, called "Another Number In My List", in which I basically enlisted all the guys I had a crush on. It was one of my first songs/poems, so it wasn't particularly serious or elaborate... I hope you liked it anyway!  
Also, if you like this story, feel free to leave a comment, or send me a message! I would really appreciate that! :)


	5. Part 1 - Chapter 4

Chapter 4

That same day, during the Glee club meeting, Charlie decided to tell everyone the truth. She was standing in the middle of the classroom, and everyone was staring at her.  
"I lied to all of you," she began. "And I'm truly sorry! I was trying to look cooler, but I think I would do better trying not to tease everyone here!"  
She was speaking with her real voice, but she was still dressed up as a boy. Everyone was pretty confused by that.  
"But... what does it mean?" asked Kurt.  
"It means I made a huge mistake, and I'm trying to fix things up," Charlie answered.  
"What mistake are you talking about?" Kurt said. "And what happened to your voice?"  
"This is my real voice," Charlie answered. "And this is the real Charlie St. Claire!"  
Charlie took off her cap and undid her hair, then unzipped her sweatshirt.  
"I should have known immediately that I was doing wrong," she continued. "But when I thought of it the first time, it didn't look like a bad idea..."  
"Why did you do that?" asked Kurt.  
Charlie knew that the boy would have reacted that way. She had been dumped so many times that she was now used to the feelings caused by someone dumping her, sometimes even very rudely, but she would have never wished the same thing to anyone.  
"I wanted to feel cool, just for once..." answered Charlie. "I didn't think that I would have hurt someone, by doing so... I've been hurt so many times, but I've never wanted someone to suffer like this because of me... I'm sorry, Kurt..."  
Charlie turned her back to the boy, who was standing right next to her. She was trying to hold back her tears.  
"But maybe it could work anyway between us," Kurt said. "You may keep dressing up as a boy, and..."  
"Don't you understand that it would never work?" Charlie interrupted him, turning around. "I would still be a girl, and you... You don't need this!"  
"But we could at least try..."  
Without thinking about it, the girl interrupted him by kissing him. Everyone was astonished, but she didn't care if anyone was looking at them.  
"I'm sorry..." said Charlie, about to break down into tears. "One day you will find your soulmate, I know... but I'm not that person!"  
Charlie, crying, ran out of the classroom. In a few hours, her mother would have discovered everything, she was absolutely sure of that!

The following day, as predicted, Charlie was emptying her locker. The next day she would have left the city, to go somewhere else, as usual. That time, strangely, she was dressed up as a girl. Kurt saw her, and decided to talk to her.  
"Are you moving again?" he asked her.  
"My mother has decided she is already tired of this city..." she answered. "I think she's just bored of her customers..."  
"So, we're not seeing each other again?"  
"I don't know... I could come back to say hello, sometimes, but I don't think my mother would approve..."  
"Is she the reason why you decided it wouldn't have worked between us?"  
"No offense, but don't you think that it would have been quite... ridiculous? I mean, picture the scene: I come home saying something like: 'Hey, mom, finally I got a boyfriend, and he's gay!' She would probably kill me!"  
"Would she have something to say even if we stay just friends?"  
"Yeah, that would work... But she will never know that you exist!"  
They gave each other their cell phone numbers, promising to call almost every day.  
"Don't worry: I was serious, when I told you your soulmate is out there, somewhere, and that very soon you'll find him," said Charlie. "I don't know exactly where mine is, but at least you'll be happy!"  
"I wish you were happy too..."  
"Maybe I'll find him in the city I'm going to move to... Who knows...? But hang on: before I go, I must do one more thing!"  
Charlie brought Kurt in the auditorium. The other Glee club members were already there. Some girls were on the stage, ready to sing. Charlie joined them.  
"I couldn't leave before telling you who I really am!" Charlie said. "The girls agreed to help me doing that! Say hello to Charlie St. Claire!"  
The music started, and Charlie and the girls started to sing.

" _I'm a laid back_  
 _T-shirt, blue jeans, mood ring kind of girl_  
 _Hey yeah what's the word on you?_  
 _Lay low I'm a mission rebel angel devil_  
 _Little left of the middle,_  
 _Sometimes I get temper mental._ "

It wasn't a song by Nyaga, but Charlie liked it very much. Actually, it had been written by one of Nyaga's best friends, who wrote in a very similar way.

" _Can't you see I want you by the way I push you away, yeah!_  
 _Don't judge me tomorrow by the way I'm acting today!_  
 _Mix the words up with the actions do it all for your reaction, yeah!_  
 _Hey! Hey! Get tangled up in me!_ "

The Glee club guys really liked "blending" songs, so Charlie tried it too. She had put together two songs by two very different singers, but which had a very similar rhythm, so that who didn't know any of the two songs could have sworn it was actually one song.

" _It's raining on Sunday,_  
 _There's nothing on TV,_  
 _Yesterday was lonely,_  
 _You're the only one who gets me._  
 _My mind is like an island_  
 _Drifting through the ocean._  
 _I can't stop thinking about you,_  
 _I bet you're thinking of me too…_ "

Charlie was about to leave, and she didn't know where in the world she would have gotten this time. She would have to leave Kurt, forget him, but her head prevented her from doing so. She couldn't stop thinking about him, and maybe she would have never stopped. She was trying to accept the idea that she would have never seen him again, but she couldn't imagine her life without him.

" _You wanna know more, more, more about me:_  
 _I'm the girl that's sweeping you off your feet!_  
 _Can't you see I want you by the way I push you away, yeah!_  
 _Don't judge me tomorrow by the way I'm acting today!_  
 _Mix the words up with the actions do it all for your reaction yeah!_  
 _Hey! Hey! Get tangled up in me!_ "

She looked for the last time at his blue eyes in which she used to get lost. Perhaps she would have never seen them again. Of course, she would have heard his voice almost every day, but it wasn't the same as having her new friend next to her. She tried to get over it, but she couldn't stop thinking that he could love her too, somehow, although it seemed absolutely impossible. She thought that she would have never met anyone like him. She felt relieved, thinking that someday she would have the perfect occasion to run away from wherever she would have been, and see him again, even for a little time.

Hi readers!  
WIth this chapter, the first part of the story (set at the beginning of Season 2, I remind you) ends, and the next chapter will be the beginning of the second part (set a year after these events).  
The "blended" songs which appear in this chapter are " _The Diary Of Me_ " by Taylor Swift and " _Tangled Up In Me_ " by Skye Sweetnam. If you don't know them, listen to them: they're pretty good actually!  
I hope you're liking this story! If you do, I would be very happy if you left me a comment, or something! :)


	6. Part 2 - Chapter 1

Part 2 - Not Enough

Chapter 1

Almost a year had passed since Charlie had left to go to Portland. She called Kurt almost every day, and she was looking forward to having some time to go visit him. She had known he had a boyfriend, while she had spent months trying to fall in love with someone, hoping she would finally find her soulmate.  
In the meantime, school had started, at the McKinley High, and the topic of the first Glee club meeting was: 'Will we manage to get to the National Championship and win, this year, instead of coming back home humiliated, like last year?' The previous year they didn't manage to qualify by a hair's breadth, but this time they were determined to win.  
"I just hope that at this year's prom won't happen what happened last time!" Kurt said.  
"Oh, what a pity!" said a voice coming from the classroom door, a voice which Kurt immediately recognized. "I would have loved to see you crowned Prom Queen!"  
The girl who had spoken entered the classroom, and everyone recognized Charlie. They hadn't seen her for almost a year, but she almost hadn't changed at all. It still seemed she had stolen her elder brother's clothes, but this time, strangely, her clothes were her size. She was wearing a white T-shirt, a gray vest, dark jeans and a hat whose color matched the color of the vest. She didn't have to hide her hair anymore, so she was proudly wearing a ponytail. As everyone recognized her, they rose from their chairs and ran to hug her. Kurt was the first among them.  
Among the Glee club members, Charlie recognized many of the ones she had met a year before, but there were also many new faces...  
"Oh my God, Blaine Anderson!" she exclaimed, suddenly.  
Among all the idiots she hoped not to meet in that city, he himself had to come to that school and force Charlie to bear all the memories that he brought to her mind?  
As everyone heard the boy's name, they moved away from Charlie.  
"A legend, for Dalton Academy!" the girl continued, with a little bow.  
"Excuse me... Do we know each other?" Blaine asked her.  
"I think so..." said Charlie. "I went to that school, even for a few months..."  
"Sorry, but I don't remember you at all…" the boy continued.  
"Of course..." said Charlie, trying to hide her hair so that Blaine could recognize her better. "I pretended I was a boy... It was easy, because I had short hair and I didn't have to hide them... Do you remember now? I was Joe's friend..."  
Joe had been the first person Charlie spoke to, at Dalton Academy. They had immediately become friends. After discovering that Charlie was a girl, Joe fell in love with her, but Charlie had never known that, as she was too busy trying to get Blaine's attention.  
"Ah, yes, now I remember you!" said Blaine. "You were that short kid with a strange voice..."  
'Said the tall one…' Charlie thought.  
A couple of years before, it took weeks for him to realize that Charlie was trying to get his attention. He treated her as an acquaintance, not even a friend, although they had sung many songs together. She was madly in love with him, and he never realized that, in spite of the messages that Charlie tried to send him: she sang songs to him, she hung round him almost every time, she always tried to get as close to him as possible... The girl thought he mustn't have been a very sharp guy, as Kurt had told her it had taken months before Blaine realized what he felt towards him...  
"Did you manage to run away, finally?" asked Kurt.  
"Yeah, my mother is in Greece with a man who should be her new boyfriend, so I left my brother in Jacksonville with a baby-sitter and I came here!" Charlie answered.  
"Jacksonville?" Mercedes asked her. "Didn't you move to Portland?"  
"Yes, I've been there for a while, then I spent a couple of months in Memphis, then I went to Dallas, a month in Baltimore and last week we moved to Jacksonville!" Charlie explained. "At first my mother wanted to go to Washington, but then she thought that there she would have got the worst customers in the whole universe, so she decided that Florida was a lot better..."  
"And... have you found your 'Prince Charming' yet?" Kurt asked her.  
"Better!" answered the girl. "I'm trying to detoxify myself! I'm sick of the idiots that just treat me as some form of amusement! It was fantastic when I 'ran away', the last time, so why should I keep letting people treat me like that?"  
The year before she had learned that sometimes songs help to explain things better: the music started, and she began to sing.

" _You know fairytales don't come true,_  
 _Not when it comes to you,_  
 _Open up for the first time,_  
 _And you can get that it's the last time._

 _And I'm cool with laying low,_  
 _Saturday night and I'm staying home._  
 _I'm feeling good for the first time,_  
 _It's been a while since the last time!_ "

She had decided that would have been the last time she would have tried to look for someone she could fall in love with. She had felt the marvelous sensation of being free, without having to think about her 'Prince Charming', and she had liked it.

" _I'll wave goodbye when you say hello, woah!_  
 _I'm sick of the sleepless, never ending nights,_  
 _I just don't care if it's wrong or right._  
 _I'm sick of the rumors and the alibis,_  
 _You turn me up, I'll cut you down the side._  
 _S-s-s-so sick of it,_  
 _So sick of it,_  
 _Sick of all of that little lies._  
 _S-s-s-so sick of it,_  
 _So sick of it,_  
 _Sick of feeling bad by your side._  
 _What you don't know_  
 _Is how great it feels_  
 _To let you go!_ "

She was sick and tired of lying, of dressing up as a boy, of doing things wrong. She had decided to change her life, to turn the page.  
While she was singing, some guys rose from their chairs and started to sing and dance with her.

" _I'm happy you're alone!_  
 _Take down your pictures and now throw_  
 _Those memories out the door!_

 _I'm sick of it,_  
 _So sick of it,_  
 _Sick of all of that little lies…_ "

She knew he was not alone. She was happy for her friend, of course, but who would ever be happy to see an ex-almost-boyfriend dating another ex-almost-boyfriend?

" _I'm sick of the sleepless, never ending nights_  
 _I just don't care if it's wrong or right._  
 _I'm sick of the rumors and the alibis_  
 _You turn me up, I'll cut you down the side!_  
 _S-s-s-so sick of it,_  
 _So sick of it,_  
 _Sick of all of that little lies._  
 _S-s-s-so sick of it,_  
 _So sick of it,_  
 _Sick of feeling bad by your side!_  
 _What you don't know_  
 _Is how great it feels_  
 _To let you go!_ "

She had let him go, right, but a part of her was trying not to forget him. Not to forget that he could have loved her, somehow. But now it was too late.  
In the meantime, next to the football field, Quinn was thinking about the same song, believing that quitting the Glee club had been the right choice for her, in that moment.

When the song was over, everyone cheered Charlie, who went to sit on one of the empty chairs.  
"Well, guys, after this amazing performance by our friend Charlie, we must find an idea for the song we will sing during the Homecoming Assembly!" the professor said. "Remember: we must try to persuade other guys to join our club, so we should choose a cool song, known by everybody, something addictive!"  
Kurt and Charlie looked at each other, knowing they had had the same idea.  
"We could do a Justin Bieber song!" someone suggested.  
"Why not a song by Lady Gaga?" another voice shouted. "Everyone likes her!"  
"Sir, Charlie and I have found the perfect song!" said Kurt.  
Everyone shut up to listen to the suggestion.  
"Nyaga!" Charlie began. "She wrote a song about when she felt overshadowed by a nerd: everyone feels overshadowed by the most popular people, but in this club they will surely find out they have good qualities, like Nyaga!"  
"Interesting idea..." the teacher said. "Who wants to do it?"  
Everyone raised their hand in favor of the idea proposed by Charlie and Kurt. The preparations for the performance began immediately.

"How did you manage to attend a school dressing up as a boy, without anyone noticing that?" asked Blaine.  
As Kurt and Blaine had a free period, they decided spend some time with Charlie, next to the football field.  
"Easy thing!" answered Charlie. "My mother has never been very interested in my education, in fact, I think she would love to see me becoming like her! Anyway, I just had to say my name was Charlie, cut my hair, disguise my voice and everyone took me for a short kid! Obviously, it worked until they caught me..."  
"Why do they always catch you?" asked Kurt, ironically.  
"Luckily I had been unmasked by a friend..." Charlie answered. "If anyone else had caught me, maybe I wouldn't have survived..."  
"It was Joe, wasn't he?" asked Blaine. "What happened to him, by the way?"  
"I don't know..." Charlie answered. "I haven't heard from him for months..."  
Charlie hadn't heard from Joe since the past year. During summer something must have happened, something she didn't know of, and suddenly she hadn't had any news from him.  
"So, you are the 'famous' Charlie..." said Blaine, changing topic. "Kurt told me a lot about you..."  
"Oh, really?" Charlie said. "I hope he told you good things about me..."  
"Yeah, he told me you're a fantastic girl," the boy continued. "You've got some self-esteem issues, but you are a good friend anyway!"  
"And you like Nyaga!" Kurt added.  
"How long are you staying here?" asked Blaine.  
"A week," Charlie answered. "Then, I'll have to run away again, since I paid the baby-sitter for this week only..."  
"And where are you going to stay this week?" Kurt asked.  
"I haven't thought about this yet..." the girl answered. "I took a bag, I put a couple of things in it and I got on the first flight heading here..."  
"You can stay at my house, if you want," Kurt suggested. "Where have you put your bag?"  
"Oh, it's in your locker," Charlie answered. "I don't know the combination, but I've been kicking the lockers open for years: I've been changing school and locker so many times that I never remember the right combination!"

Hi readers!  
I hope you enjoyed the beginning to the second part of this story! The plot will develop in some interesting ways, since now we know something else about Charlie's past, and that Blaine was part of it!  
The lyrics that appear in this chapter belong to "Sick Of You", by Selena Gomez, but some parts have been altered so that they would fit better whitin the plot.  
If you like this story, please, let me know through a message, a comment, whatever you like! I would truly appreciate that! :)


	7. Part 2 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

That evening, Charlie was placing her few things in the guests' room, when Kurt came in, with a sketchbook in his hands.  
"Is everything all right?" he asked the girl.  
That morning, it seemed that Charlie was going to tell him something, but it didn't know exactly what.  
"Yeah, of course, everything's alright," Charlie answered. "Why?"  
"You seemed a little strange to me, this morning... As if you were forced to accept something you don't like..."  
Charlie sat on the bed and thought back to that morning.  
"Look, I'm not bothered about the fact that you're dating a guy who has the same name of Barbie's lover and the sharpness of a dead sloth," the girl explained. "It's just that seeing again a person to whom I was basically invisible is not a great feeling..."  
Kurt sat on the bed, in front of her.  
"So you're not... jealous?" he asked her.  
Actually she felt like her mind was split into two sides: on one hand she was determined to get Kurt back, at all costs, while on the other hand she just wanted to forget everything, start over and stop thinking about falling in love with someone.  
"Jealous? Absolutely not!" the girl said, partly lying. "I told you: I want to stop falling in love with all the wrong people!"  
"Is that the reason for the sheets you ripped off?"  
Kurt placed the sketchbook in front of Charlie. The girl recognized it.  
"I found it a few days after you left, last year," the boy explained. "I know I shouldn't have, but I saw your drawings!"  
Charlie didn't mind. She didn't know why, but Kurt having seen her drawings didn't bother her at all.  
"You draw very well, you know?" Kurt continued. "I never met anyone who would draw a picture of my face so many times! You must have done it with all the other boys you had fallen in love with…"  
"Yeah, and every time I would rip off their pictures and burn them," Charlie said.  
"And the boy on a wheelchair is your brother, isn't he? There are so many pictures of him..."  
"Yeah, he's my little brother... I'm so sorry I left him all alone..."  
"But he knows you will always come back to him, right?"  
"Yes, I will always be there for him..."  
He was the only member of Charlie's family for whom she would have done literally everything. She would have even sold her soul to the devil if that would have let her go back in time to prevent the car accident that had made for her brother impossible to walk again.

It was the Homecoming Assembly day. The gym was filled with students and teachers. In the middle of the gym a sort of stage was built, where the Glee club members would perform. In front of the closed curtain, the principal was giving his usual speech, to which no one ever paid too much attention. Charlie was nervous like the other club members, as they had gently asked her to perform with them. After a few infinite minutes, the curtain opened, and the music started.  
Rachel Berry was playing the role of a perfect schoolgirl, while Charlie and the other Glee club members sang the song.

" _Hey, look at her:_  
 _Perfect schoolgirl with enormous brain._  
 _Tell me what you see:_  
 _A girl getting the best mark again!_  
 _Hey, look at me:_  
 _Unpretty girl that's living in a dream._  
 _What can you see?_  
 _That perfect girl is far better than me!_ "

It felt like that song had been written just for her. She perfectly understood what her favorite singer must have gone through in that particular situation.

" _You've been complaining all the time about me,_  
 _Telling me what I have to be!_ "

That song had been written for all the students who felt sick and tired of being always compared to someone smarter or cleverer than them. It was exactly what Charlie was feeling: she never felt perfect enough.

"Do you really want a robot instead of a jerk?  
Cause it's not a stupid princess that you deserve.  
You try to turn her into a robot, don't you want?  
You hope she'll change, but she won't...  
You've been complaining all the time about me,  
Telling me what I have to be!"

Maybe she had always been compared to perfect people because someone hoped to change her, someday… But something had gone wrong: instead of changing in a good way, she had taken a whole different turn...

" _I'm not that girl with curly hair,_  
 _Not that 'Einstein' sitting there._  
 _Sorry, I'm not that perfect girl,_  
 _Not that genius, not at all!_ "

It was pointless to explain that she was totally different from any other person. She would have never become like anyone else, and it seemed that no one would ever accept that.  
The applause that followed the performance made the guys understand that they had been very successful. Everyone looked at Charlie: during the song she had been strange, as if she had not been just singing some song, but trying to say something instead, through that song.

Hi readers!  
In this chapter we discovered a bit more about Charlie's past. First, we know that she had been to school with Blaine, and that she had had a crush on him, and now here we have a hint that makes us guess that maybe her friendship with someone has been compromised because she had always been compared to them... I guess we'll know more about it in the next chapter...  
Besides, the song in this chapter is mine, as you probably guessed. It's called "I'm Not", and I wrote it after a personal experience: basically I was constantly compared to a friend of mine who always did good at school, and now we're not friends anymore. A bit sad, but it's true.  
I hope you enjoyed the chapter anyway! If so, I would really appreciate it if you wrote me a comment, a message, something. You would truly make a writer happy! :)


	8. Part 2 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The following day, Charlie was in the choir room, busy working on some music sheets. Mr. Schuester had asked her to help him choose some songs for the Glee club performance at the Sectional Championship. Five or six different music sheets lay on the piano, and Charlie, standing in front of them, was trying to imagine which songs were the most appropriate to sing. She was so focused on her task that didn't even notice Kurt and Blaine walking in the room.  
"I'd choose this one," said Kurt, pointing at a sheet. "It's one of my favorite songs!"  
"What are you doing here?" asked Charlie. "Don't you have any lessons?"  
"Actually, we wanted to talk to you..." Blaine told her.  
"Yesterday, while you were singing at the Assembly, it didn't feel like you were just singing one of your favorite singer's songs," Kurt said. "It felt more like those words were yours, not Nyaga's..."  
Someone had noticed that, Charlie thought. In that moment, she didn't know what to choose between denying everything and pretend nothing happened, and explain how things actually were. After all, Kurt was her friend, and knew almost everything about her! Nevertheless, she wasn't sure whether to trust Blaine or not...  
She decided to tell everything anyway. She looked straight at the two boys, and hoped they wouldn't decide to throw stones at her, or lock her inside the piano, to run away till the other side of the universe.  
"You... know I have two brothers, don't you?" she began, addressing Kurt.  
She didn't know where to begin to explain her behavior. She hadn't spoken of it with anyone, except for her little brother, who knew everything about her.  
The boy nodded, and Charlie continued.  
"I told you that I have wanted everyone to call me Charlie since my eldest brother left home, and isn't that strange that his name is Charlie, as well? He's always been my mother's favorite son, and although parents shouldn't have favorite children, she basically worshipped my brother! She boasted of him in every occasion: with relatives, with her friends, even with her customers! I've never been important to her: she knows that I exist, and it's already too much! Just look at the name she gave me: Charlotte, that rhymes with 'harlot', and Piper, that means someone who plays a flute or something like that… an obvious reference to who my mother wants me to become one day…  
"I've always heard her speak about my brother as if he was some sort of God on earth, and she even told me once: 'Why can't you try and be like him?'"  
"So you've always been overshadowed by a perfect brother?" Blaine asked her. "I perfectly understand how you feel..."  
"Hang on: your brother is the guy in that ad? Now I understand why your face and your surname were so familiar to me..." said Charlie. "And by the way, my brother has never been perfect at all! At least, not to me! I've always thought I was the only one who saw things as they actually were: my brother wasn't special at all! I had started to suspect that when I first discovered he used to do things secretly to our mother, but there was one thing that confirmed my suspicions!"  
The two boys kept listening to Charlie, curiously.  
"It happened five or six years ago," she began. "We were living in Boston. My eldest brother didn't have a driving license yet, but he decided to steal our mother's car to go with our younger brother for a ride. I didn't go because I didn't trust him, and I did the right thing! They had been out all day, and obviously our mother didn't know anything. They were coming back home, when they were hit by a truck driven by a drunken man! My older brother, that moron, got away with a few scars, while my younger brother lost forever the use of his legs... And despite this accident, my mother keeps thinking that Charlie, that irresponsible idiot, is still God come down to earth..."  
"But... it's horrible!" Kurt said.  
"Yeah, but then he left home and decided to travel around the world on a boat with a girl I never liked..." Charlie continued. "But after he left, things haven't gotten better at all!"  
"What do you mean?" asked Blaine.  
"The reason why I was singing that way, yesterday... is not just my brother," said Charlie. "There's also another person..."  
Kurt and Blaine looked at each other, wondering if Charlie was referring to one of them.  
"Her name was Laura," said the girl, instead. "She was in my class, and she has been my best friend for the two months I've been in San Francisco. Or better, she has been for two or three weeks... This girl had the best marks in every subject, and, since my brother, the genius boy, had sneaked away, my mother didn't have a person to whom I could be compared! Why, then, not compare me just to the only person on Earth who didn't belong to my family and who actually cared about me?"  
"And then, how did it end?" Kurt asked.  
"I let my mother influence me," answered Charlie. "That girl started to become more and more unbearable to me, I started to envy her, and I couldn't even look at her! At the end, I was almost happy to get away from there! Nevertheless, I felt a little bit sorry: I wish she would have been my friend again, but it would have been impossible..."  
Charlie couldn't bear those memories. She was about to burst into tears, but she managed to hold them back.  
"Is that why you wanted your mother not to know anything about me?" asked Kurt.  
"No, I did that because, if she knew about your existence, she would come searching for you, she would kill you, she would tear you to pieces and play bowling with them!" Charlie answered. "She never said anything nice about anyone of my ex-boyfriends, not even about my ex-friends... She wouldn't like you, no matter what, and you don't really want to end up like poor Laura..."  
Charlie thought that maybe that would never happen, but since she had thought the same thing about Laura, she was afraid she would have ended up hating Kurt too. She went to sit down on one of the chairs in the room, followed by the two boys.  
"I've been compared to other people for so long that I never discovered I had some talents or qualities that everyone else appreciates!" said Charlie.  
"But you are talented!" Kurt told her. "You've got a fantastic voice!"  
"And you're particularly good at disguising yourself!" Blaine added.  
"And your drawings are wonderful!" said Kurt. "Aren't these talents for you? Maybe no one ever noticed or appreciated them, so you've always believed you weren't special!"  
Charlie thought the boy was right. No one, except for her brother, ever saw her sing or draw: if no one ever had the occasion of knowing that Charlie had some talent, no one could have ever appreciated it!  
"What if I was just good at falling in love with the fist idiot passing by?" said Charlie. "What if you're wrong about me?"  
"Don't forget I saw your drawings!" Kurt said. "They are beautiful, I told you!"  
"What could a sketchbook be, compared to all my flaws?" replied Charlie. "I have an incredible bad luck, my human relationships never last very long, I've always been overshadowed by an apparently perfect brother, and there are many reasons why I can be easily mistaken for a boy! Without even mentioning my infinite list of ex-boyfriends..."  
"Don't be so mean to yourself..." Blaine told her.  
"Why don't you try to forget your flaws and focus more on your qualities?" suggested Kurt. "You're so blinded with your negative side, that you can't see the positive one!"  
Charlie seemed resigned, as if she knew it was pointless to try and look for something positive in her.  
"You would do anything for your brother, and you care about him more than your mother would," Kurt began. "When your brothers stole your mother's car, you didn't give in and you didn't go with them; you always try not to hurt the people you love; when you left last year, you told me that very soon I would have found my soulmate, but I know that in that moment you thought of me before thinking of yourself! Aren't' these good qualities? What do you think?"  
Charlie thought about it for a few moments.  
"Am I really like this?" she said then, almost in disbelief. "Do I do so many things for other people?"  
"Of course you do!" Blaine answered. "It's just that no one makes you notice it!"  
"If only I weren't so... wrong!" said Charlie.  
"You're perfect, Charlie!" Kurt told her. "You may be full of flaws, but, to your real friends, you will always be perfect!"  
Charlie was starting to believe to those words. After all, she wanted to change, didn't she? So why not starting to appreciate herself? If two people she had teased in one of the worst ways had been able to override her so-called 'little flaws', maybe she would have succeeded too... Maybe her constant need to fall in love with someone, even with the wrong person, was caused by the fact that she had never felt appreciated by anyone, she had always felt nothing but a pile of flaws, and had reached the point of hating herself.  
Charlie hugged the two boys. No one had ever told her she was perfect, before that time. For the first time in her life, she was happy to have two friends that would never turn their backs at her, when she would need them. And, after more than a year spent thinking he was nothing but a heartless and brainless moron, she started to think that it wouldn't be a bad thing to have Blaine as a friend.  
"Thank you, guys!" said Charlie. "You know, you brought me a fantastic idea about a song you could perform at Sectionals..."

To tell the truth, at a certain point I started to hate Charlie. This chapter was an occasion to make the readers (and me!) like her, a bit. I know of people who liked her anyway, so, it is possible.  
As regards Charlie's backstory (and please, notice her name, a nod to her mother's non-existent love for her LOL), is partly inspired by my autobiographical poem/song "I'm Not" (which I partlially quoted in one of the previous chapters of this story), and a series of plot-twists, suggested by my sister, to the movie "Charlie St. Cloud" starring Zac Efron (who she hates very much!). Who has seen the movie could have recognized some little references to the movie, and who hasn't... well, shouldn't have had serious comprehension problems!  
As usual, if you liked or even disliked this story, please, let me know with a comment, a message, whatever: it would really make me very happy! :)


	9. Part 2 - Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The auditorium was completely in the dark. Slowly, a few blue lights lit up on the stage, illuminating the Glee club members. Amongst them, there stood Charlie. Before she left, they had persuaded her to sing with them the song she had chosen for Sectionals.

" _Once upon a time there was a starry night,_  
 _While I was partying at the beach._  
 _I was having fun with all my friends,_  
 _When this girl came and said, 'Leave this beach!'_

 _She made me run away:_  
 _I went somewhere dark,_  
 _Then I sat on the sand_  
 _And looked at the stars..._  
 _There were some big stars_  
 _That hid the rest,_  
 _But I saw a tiny shy star_  
 _In all that mess..._ "

It almost sounded like a fairytale. Charlie liked the songs that told a story.  
As the chorus came, the other guys started to sing with her.

" _Shine, little star,_  
 _Let me see who you are._  
 _Let me see you being the brightest star!_  
 _Shine, little star,_  
 _Let me see all your light._  
 _Make me see that pale moon becoming dark!_  
 _Little star..._ "

Nyaga had dedicated it to all the 'little stars who forgot how to shine'. In some way, Charlie felt it was dedicated to her too.

" _Once upon a time in another starry night,_  
 _I was with my friend, sitting by the sea._  
 _I tried to make her see my tiny shy star,_  
 _But she looked at the sky and asked me, 'Where is it?'_

 _She made me feel sad:_  
 _She didn't see a thing._  
 _No one could see it, except for me._  
 _The star made me strong:_  
 _Now I like who I am,_  
 _And now that I trust her,_  
 _I know I found a friend!_

 _Shine, little star,_  
 _Let me see who you are._  
 _Let me see you being the brightest star!_  
 _Shine, little star,_  
 _Let me see all your light._  
 _Make me see that pale moon becoming dark!_  
 _Little star..._ "

Now she had discovered she had some good sides. Not everyone could see them, including herself, until the previous day. Thanks to her two new best friends, she had discovered that she was special too.

" _Hey, over there,_  
 _Put your noses up in the air!_  
 _Hey, listen to me:_  
 _That star's just wanting to be free!_  
 _Hey, 'Guess Purse',_  
 _Can't you see what she's worth?_  
 _Hey, 'Talk-a-lot',_  
 _Can't you see what she's got?_  
 _Hey, other Guys,_  
 _Let me see you open your eyes!_  
 _Hey, look at the sky:_  
 _I say from now she's gonna shine!_

 _Shine, little star,_  
 _Let me see who you are._  
 _Let me see you being the brightest star!_  
 _Shine, little star,_  
 _Let me see all your light._  
 _Make me see that pale moon becoming dark! Little star..._ "

Now that she had discovered she was special, it was up to her to make the world see it. She had to shine, be proud to be herself, just like the star of the song, so that the world too would have seen how much she was worth!  
"Well done, guys!" Mr. Schuester congratulated his Glee club, from the audience.

The next day, Charlie would have left. She packed her things, and then went to McKinley High for the last goodbyes. She found Kurt and Blaine in front of the lockers.  
"You leaving?" Blaine asked her.  
"The week is over," answered Charlie. "I'm going back home to my brother... and I hope my mother doesn't bring me another one!"  
"Are you going to the airport on your own?" Kurt asked her. "I could ask my father to give you a lift!"  
"Thanks for the thought, but I prefer going on my own!" answered Charlie.  
"Do you think you'll come back here, sometimes?" asked Blaine.  
"Who knows..." the girl answered. "You know that my future is always unpredictable..."  
"You'll come to my graduation, won't you?" Kurt asked her.  
"I'll try..." answered Charlie.  
"Aren't you graduating this year too, Charlie?" asked Blaine.  
"No, that's next year!" the girl answered. 'Maybe...' she thought.  
"I have the same age as you, remember?" she added, then.  
"So, we'll meet again soon!" Kurt told her.  
"I hope so!" said Charlie.  
The two boys hugged Charlie, and then they watched her walk away. No one of them knew when they would have met again, but they hoped that day would have come soon.

Hi readers!  
With this chapter, the second part of this story is over. The next chapter will be the beginning of the third and last part, which, I remind you, is set during the beginning of Season 4.  
As you probably noticed, the song appearing in this chapter is a poem/song that I wrote a few years ago, which is dedicated to people who are somehow afraid of expressing themselves, because they feel they wouldn't be noticed or appreciated. You can read basically the whole text in this chapter, but if you want to see the whole poem/song, you can freely ask me.  
I hope you liked this chapter (and the story)! If so, I would really appreciate it if you leave a comment, or send me a message about it! :)


	10. Part 3 - Chapter 1

Part 3 – Love And Theft

Chapter 1

September. Again. School had begun again a few weeks before, at McKinley High, and many things had changed, from the previous year.  
The school bell rang at the end of the lesson, and Sam and Blaine got out of the classroom, heading towards their lockers.  
"So, are you regretting persuading Kurt to move to New York?" Sam asked his friend.  
"Absolutely not!" answered Blaine. "It has always been his dream, and I helped him achieving it!"  
"And... how is he?"  
"He's doing great! We call each other almost every day, and he always keeps me up to date with his life, and Rachel's... It's just that he told me that recently something strange is going on..."  
"What?"  
"You remember Charlie, the girl who came here a year ago, don't you? Well, Kurt told me that since a few weeks, when he tries to call her, she doesn't pick up the phone, or she immediately hangs up, as she sees his number! Or sometimes when she calls Kurt, she hangs up immediately, as she hears his voice!"  
"That's weird! Why does she do that?"  
"If I knew where she is right now, I would ask her..."  
The two boys went separate ways. While heading towards his locker, Blaine walked past the auditorium. He heard music coming from it, and, driven by curiosity, he decided to go and glance.

Tina was alone, in the middle of the stage, illuminated by a dim light. The music started, and the light grew. After a few seconds of instrumental music, she started to sing.

Tina:  
" _Loving him is like driving a new Maserati down a dead end street,  
_ _Faster than the wind, passionate as sin, ending so suddenly…_ "

She was thinking about Mike, the boy she had dumped that very summer.  
She turned towards one of the side scenes, from which Charlie came out. The girl started to sing with Tina.

Charlie:  
" _Loving him is like trying to change your mind_  
 _Once you're already flying through the free fall,_  
 _Like the colors in autumn,_  
 _So bright just before they lose it all…_ "

Both:  
" _Losing him was blue like I'd never known,_  
 _Missing him was dark gray, all alone,_  
 _Forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you never met…_  
 _But loving him was red…_  
 _Loving him was red…_ "

Both were thinking about someone they had madly fallen in love with, someone who they were trying to forget.

Tina:  
" _Touching him was like realizing all you ever wanted was right there in front of you,_  
 _Memorizing him was as easy as knowing all the words to your old favorite song…_ "

Charlie:  
" _Fighting with him was like trying to solve a crossword_  
 _And realizing there's no right answer,_  
 _Regretting him was like wishing you never found out love could be that strong!_ "

Both:  
" _Losing him was blue like I'd never known,_  
 _Missing him was dark gray, all alone,_  
 _Forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you've never met…_  
 _But loving him was red…_ "

Tina:  
" _Oh red…,_ "

Charlie:  
" _Burning red…_ "

In the meantime, Blaine was looking at the two girls from the audience. They couldn't see him, because the audience was almost completely in the dark, and they were too focused on the song they were singing.

Tina:  
" _Remembering him comes in flashbacks and echoes…_ "

Charlie:  
" _Tell myself it's time now, gotta let go,_  
 _But moving on from him is impossible…_ "

Both:  
" _When I still see it all in my head…_  
 _In burning red!_ "

Charlie:  
" _Burning, it was red!_ "

Both of them wanted to forget someone that had been very important to them, but it was almost impossible!

Both:  
" _Oh, losing him was blue like I'd never known,_  
 _Missing him was dark gray, all alone,_  
 _Forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you've never met…_  
 _Cause loving him was red…_ "

Tina:  
" _Yeah, yeah, red…_ "

Charlie:  
" _Burning red!_ "

Tina:  
" _And that's why he's spinning around in my head…_ "

Charlie:  
" _Comes back to me in burning red…_ "

Both:  
" _Yeah, yeah…_  
 _Loving him is like driving a new Maserati down a dead end street…_ "

The two girls smiled and hugged each other. They were happy they had finally managed to sing together.  
"Very good, 'Warblerette'!" said a voice coming from the audience.  
Charlie looked towards the direction that the voice had come from. After a few seconds she recognized Blaine, who was coming towards the stage, applauding her.  
When, a few years before, Charlie had attended Dalton Academy, she was a member of the 'Warblers', the Glee club of that school, together with Blaine and Joe. She was famous for having been the first and only girl to be a member of the club, but no one had ever addressed her using the nickname Blaine had just given her.  
"Why is there always someone hiding and spying on me, every time I sing, appearing out of nowhere at the end of the song, scaring the hell out of me?" said Charlie, ironically.  
She was right, though: many times she had been caught singing, revealing some secret. It had happened two years before, when Tina, Artie and Mercedes had first discovered that Charlie was actually a girl; another time, when Charlie was still attending Dalton Academy, she was caught by her friend Joe singing with her real voice a song about a boy she was madly in love with, whom she couldn't speak of.  
"What are you doing here?" Blaine asked. "On the run again?"  
Before Charlie could answer, Tina drew her attention.  
"I've got to go to class!" she told her. "See you later, Charlie!"  
The girl waved back, and then got off the stage, to get closer to Blaine.  
"You know Kurt isn't here, don't you?" the boy told her.  
"I know," said Charlie. "I read it on Facebook!"  
Blaine's attention got caught by a dark blue suitcase, left in front of the first row of seats.  
"Tell me you're not serious..." he said. "Do you really want to drop everything and go away?"  
"Do I have other options?" Charlie asked. "I've wanted to see the world for a very long time, but not with a non-stop moving!"  
"Are you insane? And how are you going to travel? By foot?"  
"No, with some makeshift means... and with the money I... took..."  
"Don't tell me you stole it..."  
"I just borrowed some money from my mother... She does nothing with it!"  
"Why are you in such a hurry to leave?"  
"My house is a living Hell... I'm not going back there! And then, if I went back, I would face again the non-stop moving, the city changing, losing my friends, and people who just tolerate me..."  
"You have withstood for eighteen years... Would it be so difficult to bear all this, until your graduation? You might need a certificate, in the future..."  
Charlie thought about it for a few seconds.  
"You're right," she said. "It won't be so difficult to keep surviving for a few months! And then, thinking about it, I could have stolen more money!"  
"What are you going to do, then?"  
"I'm going to stay here, for a few days! I'm going to stay at Kurt's, since his parents already know me... It will be great to breathe for a while, before going back to Hell..."  
Later, Blaine brought Charlie in the choir room, at the Glee club meeting. Just like the previous year, the girl noticed many new faces in the room. Every week, Mr. Schuester gave to the students a theme for the songs they would have sung during the whole week. That time, the theme was 'love songs'.

Hi, readers!  
This chapter is the first one of the last part of this story. Here, we see Charlie trying to run away from home, but she really needs to think twice about this crazy idea...  
In this chapter, you can also see the only duet in this story (I would have rendered it better using colors, but I didn't have them in the editor of this website), which is "Red", by Taylor Swift. I hope you liked it!  
I hope you're enjoying this story. If so, I would be very happy if you left me a comment, or a message: you probably ignore it, but it would help me very much! :)


	11. Part 3 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Charlie was alone, in the choir room. She was reading a book she had started some days before, when suddenly she felt her mobile phone vibrate. She pulled it out of her pocket, to know who was calling her, but as she read the name on the screen, she rejected the call and put her phone back in her pocket. She didn't feel like answering. She had been doing that for weeks: she thought that ignoring someone would have led to forgetting him completely, but it wasn't working. She resumed reading her book, trying not to think about the person who had tried to call her, a few seconds before.  
After a bunch of minutes, Brittany, a cheerleader member of the Glee club who should have had graduated the previous year, entered the choir room, and went to sit next to Charlie. She saw the girl was reading, and tried to get which book was that, bending to try and see its cover.  
"' _Useless_ '?" she said. "Isn't that a bit sad?"  
Charlie looked at her, wondering what that girl wanted. She knew her by sight, but she had never spoken to her.  
"I mean, I don't think it's appropriate for a girl like you!" Brittany continued.  
"What do you mean?" asked Charlie.  
"If you're reading that book, probably you feel useless, and I understand you, as I was told your story... I just think that reading that book will make you feel worse!"  
"Really?"  
"Yeah, although I've never read it..."  
Charlie laughed and closed her book.  
"Maybe you're right..." she said. "I said I would change, that I would stop thinking about falling in love with someone, or thinking too much about my flaws… I was even considering trying out falling in love with a girl instead of the usual wrong, impossible boys, but I don't think it would work… Anyway, I really want to be happy to have good qualities and friends... Maybe it's the moment to stop being stupid and start to change!"  
Maybe that little moral boost was just what she needed to change, and to stop thinking about the past, thought Charlie.  
"Gather the Glee club girls!" she told Brittany. "I'm thinking about a song, and you must help me singing it!"

A few lights started to illuminate the auditorium stage. Mr. Schuester and the Glee club boys were sitting in the audience, while the girls and Charlie were on the stage, waiting for the music to start. They were wearing black mini dressed and leggings and flat shoes of the same color.

" _Bang, Boom, The beat…_  
 _My baby is the bang, the boom, the beat…_

 _My boyfriend is music,_  
 _My boyfriend is music,_  
 _Yeah, music is my boyfriend._  
 _He never takes the pressure off…_

 _Hello,_  
 _The beat says hello._  
 _He knows I'm gonna follow,_  
 _My headphones are on-a._  
 _His low wind is thumpin',_  
 _Just me and him bumpin',_  
 _The walls they are watchin',_  
 _I'm turning red blushin'._  
 _You know that…_

 _I don't need no silly boys:_  
 _I just need my boyfriend!_  
 _I don't need no silly boys:_  
 _I just need my boyfriend!_  
 _Don't you know,_  
 _Don't you know that…_

 _My boyfriend is bang, the boom, the beat,_  
 _He's beatin' down the door to get to me!_  
 _Yeah, music is the shock, the shake, the shake,_  
 _The needle in the groove, the grind, the grit!_  
 _My boyfriend is music!_ "

When the song ended, everyone applauded the girls. The teacher approached the stage.  
"Interesting performance, Charlie..." he said. "Why did you choose this song?"  
"I've had too many idiot boyfriends," Charlie explained. "And I really wish I could forget the last almost-boyfriend I had... Music, at least, causes fewer problems!"  
"A very original idea, no doubt about it..." the teacher continued. "But what if, during the next few days, you could sing us a song about true love? You have just said you've been in love so many times..."  
Charlie didn't know what to say. She had been in love too many times, and with too many people... Would have it been so difficult to remember a moment in which she had thought she had truly found the love of her life? Yes, if she absolutely wanted to forget him!

Hi readers!  
This chapter means basically that right now Charlie has a lot of problems... Will she manage to solve them?  
The song that appears there is called "Music Is My Boyfriend", by Skye Sweetnam, and I slightly censored the lyrics (I just changed a word, but nevermind).  
Then, the novel Charlie is reading at the beginning of the chapter is not a real novel: it is actually a short story that I wrote a few years ago. I wanted it to be an actual novel, but it came out too short (and a bit depressing also, to be honest).  
I hope you're liking this story! If so, I would be very happy if you left me a comment to let me know that you do! I would really appreciate it! :)


	12. Part 3 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

It had taken a very short time for Charlie to find the perfect song. She had to find a song that was just about how she had felt when she had believed she had found her 'Prince Charming', and she knew exactly where to search for it. Nyaga was good at writing songs, but none of them managed to describe exactly how she had felt. There was a good friend of Nyaga's, on the contrary, who used to write a lot of love songs. Charlie really liked this other singer too, so she was able to find the perfect song, one that seemed to talk about her, amongst this singer's songs.  
She took a guitar, available for the students in the choir room, and, while the other Glee club members were staring at her, she started to sing.

" _Took a deep breath in the mirror:_  
 _He didn't like it when I wore high heels, but I do._  
 _Turn the lock and put my headphones on:_  
 _He always said he didn't get this song, but I do, I do._ "

While she was singing, all her ex-boyfriends came back to her mind. No one of them ever really liked her, for many different reasons.

" _Walked in expecting you'd be late,_  
 _But you got here early and you stand and wave. I walk to you._  
 _You pull my chair out and help me in,_  
 _And you don't know how nice that is, but I do._

 _And you throw your head back laughing,_  
 _Like a little kid._  
 _I think it's strange that you think I'm funny cause_  
 _They never did._  
 _I've been spending the last eight months_  
 _Thinking all love ever does_  
 _Are break and burn and end,_  
 _But on a Wednesday, in a café,_  
 _I watched it begin again._ "

She remembered the first and only boy who had treated her as a human being. She remembered that afternoon, at the bar, trying to make a good impression. She remembered it had seemed strange to her to meet a boy like Kurt, but nevertheless she had madly fallen in love with him.

" _You said you never met one girl who_  
 _Had as many Nyaga Roxas records as you,_  
 _But I do._  
 _We tell stories and you don't know why_  
 _I'm coming off a little shy,_  
 _But I do._

 _And you throw your head back laughing,_  
 _Like a little kid._  
 _I think it's strange that you think I'm funny cause_  
 _They never did._  
 _I've been spending the last eight months_  
 _Thinking all love ever does_  
 _Is break and burn and end,_  
 _But on a Wednesday, in a café,_  
 _I watched it begin again._ "

They would have been great together, since they had many things in common. Their love for Nyaga was just one of them.  
For the first time in her life, Charlie hadn't been afraid to talk about herself, maybe because she had the feeling she had found someone to trust.

" _And we walked down the block, to the car,_  
 _And I almost brought him up,_  
 _But you start to talk about the movies_  
 _That your family watches every single Christmas,_  
 _And I want to talk about that._  
 _And for the first time_  
 _What's past is past…_ "

That boy had made her forget all the past disappointments. Finally, the only thing that mattered was the present, and not a bunch of idiots that were only living in her past.  
While she was singing, Charlie was looking at the Glee club members, one by one. Someone already knew the song, someone else was listening to it for the first time, some were asking themselves which was the meaning of that performance, and some thought that was a wonderful song, despite never having listened to it before. Instinctively, she gazed at Blaine. As soon as she realized it, she looked down: in a certain sense, it was as if that song was a little about him too. She couldn't look at him right when she was singing a song that meant he was just another moron she had met!  
Charlie's eyes filled with tears, both for the memories that the song brought to her mind, and because she thought she was making a fool of herself.

" _And you throw your head back laughing,_  
 _Like a little kid._  
 _I think it's strange that you think I'm funny cause_  
 _They never did._  
 _I've been spending the last eight months_  
 _Thinking all love ever does_  
 _Is break and burn and end,_  
 _But on a Wednesday, in a café,_  
 _I watched it begin again._

 _But on a Wednesday, in a café,_  
 _I watched it begin again._ "

Right after the song ended, while everyone was cheering at her, Charlie put the guitar against a wall and ran out of the room, to prevent others from seeing her crying. While everyone was wondering why she had acted like that, Blaine followed her.

He found her in the auditorium, snuggled in one of the seats of the first row. He got closer to her.  
"Why did you follow me?" the girl asked, almost offended, without even looking at him. "You shouldn't be here."  
"Why?" the boy asked.  
"Because I'm an awful person," said Charlie.  
"Why? What did you do?"  
"Gosh, I knew you were stupid, but I didn't believe you were _so_ stupid!" the girl said, finally turning towards Blaine. "You didn't understand a word of the song I sang a few minutes ago, did you?"  
"Yes, it was about the first time you actually fell in love..."  
"...and about the person who made me forget all the morons I had fallen in love with, before I met him! And that includes you!"  
"Really?"  
"It's practically impossible that you didn't understand that! I had spent months trying to get noticed by you, and the only thing that I got was... moving another time! Being far from you had been a relief: I had almost managed to forget you completely, but then I came back to this city, and I was terrified to the thought of meeting someone who could have made me remember those months spent at Dalton Academy! Then I met Kurt, who has been the first to treat me as I deserve to be treated, and from that moment, all the wrong guys I had fallen in love with were no longer important."  
Blaine sat next to her.  
"Did I actually treat you that bad?" he asked.  
"I'd always tried to get noticed by you," answered Charlie. "I was always around you, I was basically stuck on you more that the gel on your hair, I always tried to spend as much time as possible with you, I even sang a Christmas song with you once, and I almost got kicked out of the school when Joe caught me singing, with my real voice, a song about the fact that I was secretly in love with you. At first I thought you were being really mean to me, or that you were just stupid, but then I thought about it, and I came to the conclusion that you were just a confused boy that never noticed me, maybe because he was too scared of falling in love with someone..."  
The boy laughed.  
"So you're not mad?" he asked.  
"Let's say I resigned myself to it," said Charlie. "You are the one who should be mad, since now you know why I sang that song..."  
"Why?"  
"Eight months after leaving Dalton, I met your boyfriend... And I'm still obsessed with him... Doesn't this make you mad?"  
"No."  
"A girl you know, who had a crush on you, is madly in love with your boyfriend, and may want to see you dead, just for the pleasure of having him all for her... And doesn't it even bother you?"  
"Why should it? I know Kurt won't ever leave me for you..."  
"Also despite the fact that, when I told him I was a girl, he tried to tell me that it could've worked anyway between us?"  
"Charlie, he sees you as a friend!"  
"Then, I guess it's not the same for me! I've been trying for two years not to think of him as 'Prince Charming', or 'The perfect boy', but it's impossible!"  
"And do you think that staying away from him or avoiding him will help? He has changed his mind about you, but you used to call each other almost every day!"  
"What if talking with him makes me feel even worse?"  
"Chatting with friends has never made anyone feel worse!"  
Charlie hugged Blaine. Maybe he wasn't as stupid as he seemed to her.  
"I guess you found the ultimate proof to many girls' theory..." said Blaine.  
"Which theory?"  
"That Prince Charming is gay!"  
Charlie laughed. There were very few people who always managed to make her laugh.  
"You know, maybe I couldn't forget Kurt because it is impossible to forget real friends..." she said. "And, speaking about friends, it's good to have some, even if they're living in another city and I can see them basically once a year..."  
"Will you go and see Kurt in New York, then?"  
"I don't know yet... For now I'm happy to be back here, and to have found a new best friend!"  
Blaine smiled.  
"I don't know why I could barely stand you at first..." said Charlie. "No one would like to see an ex-boyfriend again, not even an ex-almost-boyfriend! Then I discovered you were dating Kurt, and I felt... not really jealous... I was envious! I felt happy and sad at the same time... It was as if I knew I would never find my soulmate, that I would never be happy... like you two!"  
"Do you really think so?"  
Charlie didn't answer. She brought the boy in the choir room, now empty, and asked the piano player to play a song. She started to sing, while Blaine was looking at her.

" _So let go all of these mixed emotions,_  
 _Forget all your hesitations._  
 _Together entwined inside this feeling,_  
 _Feet off the ground, head hits ceiling._

 _Then he whispered in your ear_  
 _He's absolutely falling:_  
 _The words he said are clear,_  
 _So don't insist on stalling,_

 _Because he's tailor made for you,_  
 _With stunning golden hues,_  
 _And one sweet tone to soothe._  
 _Your persistent beating heart it's just a start,_  
 _And I have seen you everyday:_  
 _You've never been like this before._  
 _He's tailor made, tailor, tailor made…_ "

Charlie felt that each word of that song was true. Finally, her obsession with Kurt had completely vanished. She was letting go a very special person, and she didn't seem to regret it: someone else's happiness was more important than her own, for once in her life.  
When the song ended, Blaine hugged Charlie.  
Many miles away from there, in the meanwhile, Kurt was reassuring a doubtful Rachel that Finn was tailor made for her.

That evening, after having prepared her things for her forthcoming departure, Charlie decided to follow Blaine's advice, thinking that she had survived worse things. She phoned Kurt, determined not to hang up, as soon as she would have heard his voice.  
"Hi, it's me, Charlie," she began, as Kurt answered. "I'm really sorry for my behavior... I mean, when I didn't answer your calls, or when I called you just to hang up right after... I did it because I was trying to forget you, but I never did! Then I realized that I was trying to do something impossible... I mean, you're the first true friend I've ever had... and it's impossible to forget true friends, isn't it? I understood that I was just envious of your happiness... and I believed that I would never be happy like you and Blaine... I remember when you told me that soon I would've found my soulmate: I hope I'll find him soon, although I've decided that I won't think about falling in love with someone else for a while... How are you, by the way? I haven't heard from you for months..."

Hi readers!  
So, in this chapter we see Charlie taking a great step forward in the field of human relationships: not only has she stated that she can let go of Kurt, and feel ok seeing him happy together with Blaine, but she has also overcome her sort of 'hate' towards Blaine, letting him become her new best friend.  
We also have two songs here: the first one is " _Begin Again_ " by Taylor Swift (I slightly changed the lyrics so that they would fit better in the story) and the other one is " _Tailor Made_ " by Colbie Caillat (actually it's half of it, because I wanted to use it to link two scenes, the second of which is described in the last line in the paragraph after the song).  
I hope you like this story, and I would be very happy if you let me know it: leave a comment, a message, whatever! I would really love to hear your opinion! :)


	13. Part 3 - Chapter 4

Chapter 4

It was Charlie's last 'vacation' day. That afternoon she would have left to go back home. She had decided that she would keep her promise to Blaine: she would have gone back to school, she would have graduated, and then she would have run away.  
She went to McKinley with her suitcase, to say goodbye to the Glee club members before leaving. Suddenly, her mobile phone vibrated. She took it, imagining that she had gotten a message from her brother or from one of her very few friends, but actually it was an anonymous message, in which the sender asked her to go to the auditorium.  
She went to the rendezvous, and she was really surprised, when she saw the boy who was waiting for her, on the auditorium stage. He was a boy who had made fun of her, two years before, during her first day in that school, and who had received a punch in the face by Charlie, because of that. He was one who was respected by the whole school, but Charlie always thought that, after all, he was a little afraid of her. For this reason, they had never talked to each other, but she was pretty sure that the boy's name was Noah Puckerman, and that he was called 'Puck' by his friends, as his reputation preceded him. She also knew that he had graduated the previous year.  
She left her suitcase near the door, and got closer to the stage. The boy, who was holding a guitar, started to sing.

" _I remember when I realized_  
 _The depth of your beauty for the first time._  
 _A million ears had heard you,_  
 _But none had listened quite like mine_

 _Every phrase that leaves your lips_  
 _Makes me feel as if I'm paralyzed._  
 _Talking is trivial, sing another crazy note,_  
 _And I will be there below…_

 _The troubles that we knew before_  
 _Disappear and all I know is that…_

 _It makes no difference where you come from,_  
 _I don't care if you need my love,_  
 _You know I'll be there!_  
 _I swear I want to sing to the world,_  
 _No need to keep it a secret:_  
 _You are the one, the only,_  
 _My musical soulmate._ "

It was incredible: she didn't know how, or why, but someone had fallen in love with her. She believed it was impossible, for her, to catch someone else's attention for a positive reason, but it had happened anyway.  
She remained there, listening to the boy who was dedicating a song to her.

" _Darling, listen:_  
 _The audience is calling you._  
 _(They're calling you)_  
 _There's no way in hell that_  
 _They will ever feel you like I do…_

 _It makes no difference where you come from,_  
 _I don't care if you need my love,_  
 _You know I'll be there!_  
 _I swear I want to sing to the world,_  
 _No need to keep it a secret:_  
 _You are the one, the only,_  
 _My musical soulmate._ "

When the song ended, Charlie didn't know how to react. No one ever had fallen in love with her, so that he would dedicate a song to her. Or perhaps it had happened, in the past, since she had never discovered that her friend Joe was in love with her.  
"Wow..." she tried to say. "A wonderful song..."  
"Yeah..." said the boy. "I've decided to dedicate it to you, because I felt exactly like this, when I realized I liked you."  
Charlie blushed. She didn't really know how to behave, in such a situation.  
"You know, if you had dedicated this song to me some time ago, maybe I would've started dating you, we would've run away together, and our relationship would've ended in a few weeks' time," she said. "The last thing I want is to hurt someone, so... No, thanks: I gave that up."  
"Are you afraid of my 'bad boy' reputation?"  
"No, it's just that it seems that I bring very bad luck... All my previous love stories ended badly, and all my human relationships too... except my relationship with my little brother, obviously... I was considering the idea of moving on to girls, but I don't think I would be much luckier in that case, either!"  
"But it won't cost you anything to give me a chance..."  
"I'm so sorry... But now I want to change! I want to stop searching for the perfect boy, and I will start waiting for him while living my life, because if he exists, I know that sooner or later I will meet him anyway!"  
"You mean, you want to stop kissing frogs, waiting for your Prince Charming to come?"  
"Exactly! I don't doubt that you're a good boy now, but it's better for me to stop falling in love with anyone!"  
The girl left the auditorium. She took her suitcase, and went to the choir room.

"As you know, today is my last day here," she began. "I will go back home, where non-stop moving and living hell will be waiting for me, and I will try to hold on until I graduate! After that, I want to leave for a very long trip: I want to see the world, but not moving continuously! I will travel alone, like I've always dreamed!"  
She would have liked to leave immediately, but she wanted to keep the promise she had made to her new friend.  
"I also wanted to thank you all," she continued. "First of all, for being the only friends that I have (and, above all, I hope you will remain my friends), and then, for having helped me improving myself! I don't think I would've made it without you... But before saying goodbye to you, I wanted to sing a song for you."  
She told the band to start playing the song, and then she started singing.

" _Sometimes you think you'll be fine by yourself,_  
 _Cause a dream is a wish you make all alone._  
 _It's easy to feel like you don't need help,_  
 _But it's harder to walk on your own._ "

Many Glee club members too knew that song, so they started to sing with her.

" _You'll change inside,_  
 _When you realize…_

 _The world comes to life,_  
 _And everything's alright,_  
 _From beginning to end,_  
 _When you have a friend by your side,_  
 _That helps you to find_  
 _The beauty you are,_  
 _When you open your heart and believe in_  
 _The gift of a friend,_  
 _The gift of a friend._ "

As her social relationships never lasted for a long time, she had never understood how good it was to have friends. In fact, she had discovered the importance of friendship right during those days.

" _Someone who knows when you're lost and you're scared,_  
 _There through the highs and the lows._  
 _Someone to count on, someone who cares,_  
 _Beside you wherever you go._

 _You'll change inside,_  
 _When you realize…_

 _The world comes to life,_  
 _And everything's alright,_  
 _From beginning to end,_  
 _When you have a friend by your side,_  
 _That helps you to find_  
 _The beauty you are,_  
 _When you open your heart and believe in_  
 _The gift of a friend._ "

She had never had true friends, before. And the first true friends she had ever had were the first people who had managed to make her see her inner beauty.

" _And when your hope crashes down,_  
 _Shattering to the ground,_  
 _You, you feel all alone._  
 _When you don't know which way to go,_  
 _And there's no signs leading you on,_  
 _You're not alone…_

 _The world comes to life,_  
 _And everything's alright,_  
 _From beginning to end,_  
 _When you have a friend by your side,_  
 _That helps you to find_  
 _The beauty you are,_  
 _When you open your heart and believe in…_  
 _When you believe in…_  
 _When you believe in… the gift of a friend._ "

Everyone hugged Charlie, to say goodbye to her. Charlie was happy she could count on her new true friends she had found. Now she knew she wasn't alone.  
Blaine was the last one to hug the girl.  
"Don't do anything stupid!" he told her.  
"I'll try to be a good girl!" said Charlie.

Having friends she could talk to, and unburden herself to, also through the Internet or a phone call, really helped Charlie, who managed to endure her life until her graduation day. The following day, as she had planned, she would have run away, and no one would have known where she would have gone.

Hi readers!  
This is the final chapter of Part 3. The next chapter will be the epilogue, written long before the actual Glee finale. It ends more or less in the same way, but, obviously, in the real finale there is no Charlie!  
As regards this chapter, I'm sorry if you actually believed Charlie would end up with Puck. I guess they weren't meant to be after all! Then, the songs that appear here are " _Musical Soulmate_ ", by Mark Salling (I always hoped Mark would actually sing one of his original songs on the show) and " _Gift Of A Friend_ " by Demi Lovato.  
I hope you like this story! In any case, I would really appreciate it if you left me a message, a comment, or whatever you like, to let me know your opinion, or also if you feel like giving me some advice. It would make me really happy! :)


	14. Epilogue

Epilogue

The room was almost in complete darkness. Charlie looked at the tiny creature who was fast asleep right in front of her. Was it possible that, in the perfect little creature she was looking at, there was a part of her?  
She tried to remember how it had happened. Some five years before, the day after her graduation, she had stolen all the money her mother had (she knew where her mother kept them, and she even knew how to access her bank account and her credit cards' passwords), so that the only money left in the house were her little brother's. She had put in her suitcase just a few things she absolutely needed (clothes, documents, money and her mobile phone) and she had headed to the airport, ready to jump on the first flight departing towards any destination. She didn't have a clear destination: she just wanted to go away, as far as possible from her family, although she felt sorry for leaving her brother alone with their mother.  
After four years spent travelling around the world, she was back to the United States. She had seen almost every bit of the country, since she used to change city very often, but, for once in her life, she wanted to see her own country as a tourist. Her trip, though, ended because of something that changed her life forever.  
She was scared, she had the feeling that she had done something so wrong that she decided to backtrack. She desperately needed someone. How could she have done something like that? She was afraid she had hurt someone, with her almost desperate action. She had decided not to tell anyone where she was, but she was so in need of help that she wanted to be found by someone. She wrote on Facebook that she was in Lima, Ohio, waiting for someone to come and find her.  
Less than twenty-four hours later, the girl received an unexpected call from Blaine. They hadn't talked very often, during the last months, so Charlie didn't expect the boy to call her. During that call, however, the boy didn't seem to notice that they almost hadn't heard from each other for months: he just told her to go to New York, where he was living.  
Charlie left immediately. She needed friends, wherever they were.  
When she reached the address her friend had told her, she rather expected to see his surname on the label on the intercom, next to Kurt's. She rang, and, when the door opened, she climbed the stairs, heading to her friends' apartment.  
"You called?" she told Blaine, as he opened the door.  
"Charlie, how are you?" Blaine asked her, happy to see her.  
"I've had worse moments..." the girl answered, entering. "What about you? What are you doing here?"  
As he heard the girl's voice, Kurt ran to say hello to her.  
"Charlie!" he shouted, running to hug her. "How was your trip?"  
"Better than expected!" Charlie answered. "However, speaking of more serious issues, why am I here? When you called me, you didn't tell me almost anything..."  
The two boys looked at each other, and then asked Charlie to sit on the big white 'L' shaped couch, in the living room. They sat on the same couch, next to each other, so that they could look at the girl in the eyes while talking to her.  
"Where do we start...?" Blaine began. "You are definitely not coming back home, are you?"  
"No, not even to see whether my little brother has survived or not!" said Charlie. "Poor boy..."  
"So, where are you going to stay?" the boy continued.  
"I have no idea..." answered Charlie.  
"What if you move here?" Kurt told her. "You could stay in our guest bedroom!"  
"Really?" said the girl, incredulously.  
"And there's more!" said Blaine, handing the girl some paper sheets.  
"Job announcements?" said Charlie, reading fast the sheets she had just been given. "But... why? Why are you doing all this? Do you want to bribe me to get something?"  
The two boys glanced at each other. It seemed that Charlie had discovered their actual intentions.  
"We want a baby, Charlie..." Blaine told her, holding Kurt's hands. "And... we need your help!"  
The girl didn't know how to answer.  
"Are you… nuts?" she said. "I mean... I respect your decision, but... why me?"  
"Because you are perfect for us!" Kurt told her.  
"Oh, come on!" Charlie replied. "I can name you at least a billion people who are far more perfect than me: Taylor Swift, Dianna Agron, Ashley Tisdale, Heather Morris, Luisana Lopilato..."  
"...Nyaga Roxas..." Kurt added.  
"I don't know if you noticed, but to us you seemed much more available than the 'Barbies' you just mentioned," said Blaine.  
"But you live in New York, for God's sake!" said Charlie. "At every corner of the street you can find at least one girl who would agree to do anything for you, and in a far better way than me!"  
"But we don't want a random girl," said Kurt. "We want you!"  
"You must be really desperate, then..." Charlie replied. "You could have chosen anyone, and you've chosen to entrust such an important task to the most horrible person in the whole universe, instead..."  
"I thought you had turned over a new leaf, that you had forgotten that story!" said Blaine.  
"I'm not referring to the fact that I have been madly in love with both of you," Charlie explained. "Nor to the obsession I've finally managed to get rid of... I'm talking about the reason why you found me!"  
The two boys wondered what she was saying. Why didn't she ever give clear answers?  
"It happened a couple of months ago," Charlie began. "I had almost finished my USA trip as a tourist, when something I'll never forget happened. I don't know what I was thinking, or why I did it, exactly, but it felt like I knew I was doing something wrong. There was a boy, an idiot who had added me on Facebook, who had asked me if we could meet one day. We have actually met, but right from the first moment I saw him, I had a bad feeling. It ended up in the way you can easily imagine, but I don't think that was the worst thing..."  
"Why? What else did he do?" asked Kurt, almost scared.  
Charlie could barely tolerate those memories.  
"He called me 'Blaine Anderson'!" said the girl, lapidary.  
Blaine winced.  
"It's already a horrible thing to do, to call someone with a different name," Charlie continued. "But being called with the name of a person I know, by a moron like that, it's really terrible!"  
"That's why you wanted to be found by someone, then..." said Blaine.  
"Hearing your name from a guy like that, has, like, brought me back to reality, and made me realize that I was making a really huge mistake... But, by that time, it was too late..." said Charlie. "Now that I think of it, however, why did that moron know you? You didn't cheat on Kurt with that guy, did you?"  
"Don't you remember, by chance, what did his profile picture look like?" Blaine asked.  
"Definitely it wasn't his face," the girl answered. "I've been looking at his profile pictures album, and there weren't any photos of him! There were just pictures of very tall buildings, like the Empire State Building, the Chrysler skyscraper, the Eiffel Tower, the tallest skyscraper in the world, a lighthouse..."  
"Wow! I didn't think he was still on the loose..." said Blaine.  
"He may be an idiot, but you must have made a really good impression to him," said Charlie. "And I confirm what I told you years ago: if you had the courage to cheat on Kurt with such a person, that would make you a big..."  
"Let's go back to the reason why we called you, Charlie," Kurt interrupted her. "Are you in or not?"  
"We don't want to force you to do something you don't' want to do, but we would be very pleased if you accepted!" Blaine added.  
"Haven't you heard a single word of what I said?" asked Charlie. "I'm a horrible person, I've been so weak that I was able to do such a thing, and... I've betrayed you, and you shouldn't even look at my face anymore!"  
Charlie just wanted to go back in time, and change her past, although she knew it was impossible. She looked down, trying not to think of her insane act.  
"You haven't betrayed anyone, Charlie," Blaine reassured her. "You were alone, maybe you didn't think of what you were doing, but now it's past, you have repented of what you've done, and it doesn't matter anymore!"  
"Everyone makes mistakes, Charlie," Kurt added. "But you have to stop blaming yourself, you have to go on, and think that it was just a simple mistake! Although it wasn't just a small innocent mistake, and you can never pretend it never happened..."  
"We are giving you the occasion of starting again, of being part of our family..." said Blaine. "Are you in, then?"  
"You don't realize what would happen, if I accepted..." said Charlie. "I've been brought up by an incapable person, I've never tolerated my family, I've been haunted for years by the idea that my life would have become satisfying from the moment that I would have met the perfect boy, and I think I really bring bad luck around me! Do you really want to entrust such an important task to a person like me? Not to mention that I could even go crazy, or worse…"  
"Who told you it will happen?" Blaine told her, to reassure her. "And then, in the case you suddenly go crazy, Kurt and I will be there for you... You see, you won't be alone..."  
Charlie was almost convinced.  
"Maybe this is your occasion to do something really good for someone else!" Kurt told her. "You would prove to yourself that you can do also good things, and that you don't just bring bad luck, and you're not worthless as you think!"  
Charlie smiled.  
"Ok, fine! I'm in!" she said. "I will do it: you have convinced me!"  
The two boys were overjoyed.  
"We'll never know how to say thank you, Charlie!" Kurt told her.  
"Letting me stay here, not making me pay any rent and finding me dozens of job announcements is enough!" the girl answered.  
"Nothing will ever be enough to pay you back, Charlie!" Blaine told her. "What if tomorrow you and I go to meet the doctor?"  
"Oh my God, tell me it's not your friend, the crazy girl who calls everyone by their middle names…" said Kurt.  
"Why? Don't you like Tori?" Blaine asked. "She's a bit weird, but she's cool!"

Charlie kept looking at the baby girl. It was incredible how in such a perfect creature there was a part of her too. The boys had been right: that little creature truly was something perfect, something who had made someone else happy.  
The previous months had passed so quickly. She had found a job, a new family, and, for the first time in her life, she could consider herself happy.  
She was deep in thought, when Kurt arrived.  
"She's beautiful, isn't she?" he told her, referring to the baby, still fast asleep.  
"Yeah, she's wonderful..." the girl answered. "I just don't understand why you have called her May Charlotte!"  
"Maybe you still don't realize that, but you did something really beautiful for us, Charlie... We needed to say thank you, in some way!"  
"Wasn't it enough to find me a job and to let me stay here with you? Without mentioning the fact that now you have practically 'adopted' me..."  
"Well, Charlie Anderson, we did better than that..." said Kurt, explicitly referring to the fact that Charlie had actually changed her surname, because she felt she didn't belong to her family, and that now they always introduced her as Blaine's sister.  
Kurt pulled out of his pocket a ring of keys. Charlie had already sensed what they were.  
"Don't tell me you gave me a home!" Charlie said, incredulously, careful not to wake the baby up.  
"We gave you the apartment in front of ours!" Kurt told her, giving her the keys. "And don't worry, because you won't stay there all alone for much longer..."  
"What do you mean?"  
"Your brother is already on a plane heading towards here. I'm going to pick him up in a few minutes: are you coming?"  
Charlie couldn't believe his words. It seemed like a dream to her, and she was afraid she could wake up any minute. She was certain she had never had such a beautiful dream: maybe she wasn't dreaming at all! She couldn't imagine having her beloved younger brother right there, with her, in a dream that had just come true. Maybe, in a near future, he would even manage to walk with his own legs!  
Charlie followed Kurt out of the room. Before crossing the threshold, she took one last look to the sleeping child: she was smiling, so she was probably dreaming of something really beautiful. In the little girl's smile, Charlie couldn't help recognizing Kurt's.

Hi readers!  
With this chapter, our story ends. Although it was written before the actual Glee finale, it pretty much tells the same story (with the exception of Charlie, of course!). I hope you liked it!  
I think this is a bittersweet ending for Charlie, because she appears to be getting what she wanted (new friends, a new home, a job, her little brother), but it seems that she still misses something. It seemed to me the most appropriate ending for the story, since I don't like Charlie very much. I know, I created her, but that doesn't mean she couldn't turn into a pain in the you-know-what!  
Anyway, I hope you liked this story. Even if you didn't, I would really appreciate it if you left me a coment, or a message: you have no idea how much it can help a writer! :)


End file.
